


Baseball

by Draikinator



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Nonbinary Frisk, Post Game, Post-Pacifist Route, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Second Person, Transphobia, reader is sans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 03:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5232485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draikinator/pseuds/Draikinator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frisk has always had trouble saying so when something's bothering them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baseball

**Author's Note:**

> The only real significance of baseball here is that baseball is a conversational safeword for me; ie, if something is wrong and i need to get out of a situation, the "i need help and i need it now and i need it from you and i need it without actually having to say the word help" word is baseball, so.

You’re stirring a packet of strawberry koolaid into a pitcher when you hear the front door open. Frisk must be home from school, so you set the spoon down on a paper towel and peek out into the living room to check on them. There’s definitely a kid there, but it’s not Frisk. It’s a human, yeah, but it’s got long hair and it’s slipping off its sneakers into the shoe rack by the door. You cock your head at it.

“heya,” you say. The human jolts and whips around to look at you, guiltily. “you come here often?”

“I, uh,” the human says, fidgeting, “I’m Frisk’s friend.”

“where, uh, is frisk, anyway?”

“Oh, uh. She went to the bathroom,” the human says. You frown.

"Who went to the bathroom?”

“Frisk,” the human says. You’re about to say something when Frisk runs back in the room and shucks off their shoes haphazardly, nowhere near the bin.

“Hey, Sans!” They say, flustered, “This is Jordan! She’s a friend from school. We’re gonna go play xbox, okay?” You give them a curious, confused look, but you can see them begging with their eyes to drop it, so you do. You don’t like to fight.

“aight. i made koolaid, if you want some.”

Frisk perks up, “Fruit punch?”

“strawberry.”

“Oh,” they say, “Yeah, sure.” They grab their friend by the hand and head into the kitchen. You make a mental note to get fruit punch koolaid next time instead of strawberry. You let them have the kitchen and dig around the couch cushions for the remote. You can hear them whispering things like “Holy cow, he’s really a skeleton?” In the kitchen, but you ignore it. Even years later, humans are still unsettled by monsters.

You put on an episode of Law and Order and try not to stare when they run out of the kitchen with mugs of koolaid and up the stairs to Frisk’s room. You do, however, listen for the sounds of whatever fps shooter Mettaton bought them for Christmas floating down the stairwell.

An hour or so later, Toriel opens the door and steps inside, setting her laptop bag down on the foyer table. You mash the tv power off and hop to you feet, grinning. She’s happy to see you, if tired looking, and greets you with a soft nuzzle and intertwined fingers. You think about telling her about Frisk’s imploring look and the other human calling them she, but you don’t think it’s right to bring it up without talking to them yourself first, so you don’t.

Toriel makes potato soup for dinner, with cheese and bacon and Frisk eats it like they eat everything, but that kid had always had an iron stomach, shoving dry noodles and glitter burgers and god knows what disgusting “food” they’d gotten from the trash into their throat like it was nothing. The other human, Jordan, looks apprehensive, like they expect the soup to be made of snails or toes or something. Toriel probably would have made snail stew, actually, if the other human hadn’t been here, but you weren't going to say that.

After dinner the other human’s father came back to pick her up. He was a nice man who didn’t balk at his daughter’s friends parents, a skeleton and a goat monster, which Sans thoroughly appreciated. He must work with monsters. Frisk waves goodbye from the window until their car is out of sight and then turns to look at you.

You cock an eye socket at them questioningly, and they glance at Toriel, then back at you. You nod, catching the hint.

“yo, tori,” you say, and she looks up at you from her lesson plans, “me'n frisk are gonna go for a walk, aight?”

“Oh! Of course, darling,” she smiles at you and you melt a little bit at that, “Text me on your way back, I’ll make some hot chocolate. It’s cold out tonight.”

“will do, hot stuff,” you say with a wink and turn to Frisk, who’s already shrugging into their winter jacket by the door. They grab your hand on the way out and you actually make it a full block before they say anything.

“Will you spar with me?” Frisk asks, which is such a weird thing to ask, because they never ask to spar with you. They spar with Pap and Undyne all the time, and even that kid that follows Undyne around like a lost, armless puppy, but they’ve never asked you. They know you don’t like to fight- it’s been a long, long time since you two fought eachother, and you’ve appreciated the retention of the seriousness that fight held all these years.

“you want me… to spar with you?”

They nod, but don’t make eye contact. You don’t really understand this kid, and you never really have, but you trust them, at least. You nod, and you both cut across the intersection to the park and the baseball field in the back. It’s unused this late into winter, and it’s just the cusp of twilight now, with darkness falling at the sky’s bitter, cloudless edges, so the park is empty when you get there. They don’t say anything when they step away from you and turn to face you ten feet away in the field.

“you sure?” You ask, a little hesitant, and they nod, and you resolve not to ask again. Kid knows what they want, always has.

You can’t bring yourself to start with a weak attack, because it would be an insult. This kid’s killed you a dozen times over, there’s no reason to go easy on them. You drag a volley of bones from the ground that shoot up out of the dirt, and Frisk dodges them effortlessly with a half-cartwheel and a quick hop. They duck under them when you send them back down in a rain of spear-tipped bone, followed by a sideways shot. They use the flat of their palms and the momentum of your bullets to land on their harmless tops and propel themselves out of the flurry, only to land with a thump on the hard, torn up earth. You lower your hand and you’re about to ask if they’re done, when they speak.

“How do you know you’re a boy?” They ask, and you have no idea how to answer that question.

“what?”

They run at you, hand clenched into a fist, but it’s still not hard to dance back out of the way. They spin back to face you, and when they come at you again you head them off with a wall of bones. They hit it hard, feet first, and launch themselves up over the top of it. You catch them midair with magic, throwing them across the field. You wince when they hit the ground face first and roll three times.

“shit, kiddo, you okay?”

They climb back to their feet without even really pausing, wiping the dirt from their mouth, “ _How_ do you _know_ you’re a _boy_? There’s nothing down there, right?” They say, gesturing. You can see they’re starting to get mad, and you can’t figure out why.

“i, uh,” you stammer, blushing at the weird, but correct accusation, “i dunno? i just kind of, am, i guess? i dunno, kid, i never really thought about it-”

They’re after you again, this time going in for a leg sweep that you have to jump over, and you summon a Gaster Blaster, searing the grass they’d been standing in a moment ago. They dodge between the maze of femurs you send at them next like an expert.

“Yeah?” They say, and you’re starting to worry they’re letting someone else help them with this fight, because they’re good, but not THIS good, “That so?”

You aren’t sure what to say, but you hurl another flurry of tibias at them, and they bounce over a sea of attacks like it’s nothing, like it’s easy. Your next gaster blast catches the back of their jacket and they rip it off, sweating. You want to stop, but something’s wrong and you don’t know what.

“frisk, buddy- do you want to just- let’s stop, okay, can we just tal-”

“No!” They yell, and they’re back after you with a palm strike, something Undyne taught them. You roll backward out of the way and from the ground you let your soul activate, taking shape and form, and you throw them back and away from you with magic, even though you can already feels its grip on your insides tightening. You really can’t do this forever.

“kid, what- what the hell is wrong?!” You yell back at them, but they’ve grabbed one of your own bones from where it’s stuck in the ground and lobbed it at you. You tuck and roll just barely out of the way and look up in time to see them coming at you with another one.

Your next gaster blast sends them rolling out of the way again with a shout

“Shut up!” They scream, “Shut up, shut up, shut up!!”

They try to hit you with a bone like it’s a sword and you wrench it from their grasp, and kick them backward.

“stop!”

“No!”

They throw themselves at you and you wrestle in the grass for a moment before they manage to punch you in the face and your head snaps back in surprise. In anger, in surprise, in something, you snap and let your eyes fizz out, overwhelmed with the power of your own soul and grab them by the back of their shirt with magic and throw them, hard, really hard, into the fence on the far side of the field. They land with a hard thump on the ground and barely manage to struggle to their knees before they look up and see a dozen Gaster Blasters aimed and charging at their head.

You gasp when you realize what you’re doing and wave them away, stumbling to your feet and cursing, and they sag when the blasters vanish in a disappointed way that makes your ribs ache. They’re clearly done fighting when you get to them, and you kneel next to them to check their fragile human body for breaks.

“we’re done now,” you say, shakily, “i’m not fighting you anymore.”

They nod a little weakly and fold their legs under themself. You lean back, hands wavering, and cross your legs, too.

“I’m not a girl,” they say, after a minute.

“i know,” you say, confused.

“My teacher said that humans are either boys or girls,” they sigh, and stare at the ground, “She said I had to pick one. For roll call, I think.”

“what? why?”

They shrug and pick a dandelion, untouched by the fighting.

“you don’t have to do that,” you say, when they clearly aren’t going to respond, “you really don’t.”

“It doesn’t matter,” they say, plucking at the fuzzy parts of the weed, “I don’t… I don’t want to fight about it. It isn’t worth it.”

Their shoulders start shaking and you think they’re going to cry for a weird second, before you realize they’re just cold. Their jacket, or what’s left of it, is still abandoned on the other side of the field. You shrug yours off and hand it to them. They take it wordlessly and slip it around their shoulders, burying their face in the worn blue fabric.

“is that why you’re so upset?”

They nod and draw their knees up to their chest.

“alright… uh, request, then? in the future, can you just tell me what’s wrong instead of trying to get me to kill you?” They bury their face in their knees silently, “i’m a lot of things, kid, but a mind reader’s not one of them.”

“….Sorry,” they say, quietly. You shift, and frown, and put a hand on their back, comfortingly.

“no, it’s- sorry. no, you’re fine. i know talking’s hard for you.”

They peek one eye up over their elbow to look at you, a little pathetically, “I saved on the way here. It would have been fine.”

‘You know how I feel about reloads’ dies behind your teeth and you just sigh, “c'mere.”

They hesitate, probably at your wording, but unwrap themselves from their little ball and crawl into your lap. You haven’t held them like this since they were a kid, but you can feel them relax almost instantly when they bury their face in your shoulder, like it’s somehow safer there.

“me'n tori will talk to the school, okay?”

“I don’t want anyone to fight over me,” they say, but they’re already giving up, fighting out of reflex more than anything.

“too bad, kiddo. you took care of us, now let the grown ups do at least something for you, alright? tori works there, they’re not gonna wanna make a big deal out of it. it’s gonna be fine.”

They tighten their grip around your neck for a minute before going slack, “…Thank you,” they say, finally, and you can hear the exhaustion in their voice.

“no problem, buddy,” you say, and give them a reassuring squeeze, “you want me to call mom and tell her to start some hot chocolate?”

They nod a little more enthusiastically than you were expecting and you chuckle. This kid loves to eat. You help them stand up and they wipe at their eyes and you go pick up their ruined coat. You’re not entirely certain what to tell Toriel when you get back about the bruises and dirt and you’re actually pretty sure Frisk broke their hand on your face, but. This isn’t the first time they've gotten themself hurt trying to express some need for help, and it probably won’t be the last. Frisk’s more fucked up than you are, but that’s probably just what happens when you go through the kind of nasty shit they have.

They hold your hand on the way back with the fingers that aren’t broken and you let them think you haven’t noticed until you get back home and Toriel fixes them with healing magic.


End file.
